


Tinder

by Gamebird



Series: Gamebird's TOG Series [3]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Fire, Gen, Not a stand-alone, allusions to torture, deleted scene from Heart Piercing, post-torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:40:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29137215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gamebird/pseuds/Gamebird
Summary: Joe rescues Booker from a burning building where he was tortured, tied up, and left to die by Quynh.Set during the story Heart Piercing, near the end when Joe goes into the burning apartment building to rescue Booker. Since Heart Piercing was from Andy's POV, this scene didn't make sense in that story. But it happened and should give some depth as to why Joe was protective of Booker in the last chapter and Booker was looking to Joe for him to provide explanations to the group about what had happened.
Series: Gamebird's TOG Series [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138370
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	Tinder

The first two floors weren't bad as far as the fire went. The doors on the first floor were flung open. On the second, the firefighters were still doing a room by room search and rescue. Joe ran to the third. The air was hot and the smoke was high. His intention was to head straight for the heart of the blaze (and he thought it was on this end, it was why he'd chosen it). He saw bodies in the hallway and he knew his instincts had been right.

Two dead police and … someone else. A civilian – an older man. Blood everywhere from cut throats. Joe shoved open the door next to the older man's corpse. It was probably stupid, as firefighting tactics went, because the door was scorching hot and this was clearly the center of the fire. He was feeding it oxygen by opening the door, allowing it to spread.

But he wasn't a firefighter and his primary objective wasn't to contain the fire. It was to find Booker and get him out of here. He'd leave containment to the emergency personnel. He saw another body on the floor, face-down. "Booker?"

Fire was all around – the furniture, the walls, flowing across the ceiling. Joe couldn't breathe inside. He practically fell on the body. Booker – if this was him and it looked to be – was bound, hands behind his back and around his ankles and calves. There was a scarf around his neck. "Booker!" When there was no answer, he said, "Sebastien?" and shook him. The man's eyes were glassy, but it was definitely him.

The atmosphere was starting to kill him, as well, Joe could feel. He struggled to get Booker's dead weight over one shoulder, then stood. While he'd crouched at the floor, the air quality (though still lethal) had been better. The room swam. Tears streamed out of his eyes and his hair began to singe where it wasn't covered by the cap. Nicky would kill him if he burned off his hair again.

He staggered into the hallway. It was marginally better, but he stumbled over one of the bodies and collapsed to his knees. Booker started to fall from his shoulder. He wedged him against the wall and repositioned him. He thought he felt a wriggle from the man – not an attempt to get away, but some other movement. Good. Maybe he was alive again.

Joe could feel his lungs and body fighting to heal the toxic air. He didn't try to stand again. Instead, he crawled and knee-walked, keeping his head down. He made it to the top of the stairs and started down, eyes still leaking and throat burning. He got halfway down before he risked standing. His strength was coming back with the fresher air.

He sagged against the wall, breathing in deeply as he regained his wits. Below, a firefighter came to the base of the stairs and hurried up when he saw him. Joe started down again, trying to wave off the man.

"Do you need oxygen?" He tried to check Booker. "Why is he tied up?"

Unable to speak, Joe waved him off again, coughed, and started down the stairs to the first level. The air was so much sweeter here. The firefighter followed the whole way. Outside, the other man helped him put Booker on the ground. He was worried about how Booker hadn't spoken. He'd moved earlier, right? Or was that just some smoke-induced hallucination?

They laid Booker on his side. The firefighter said, "This is wire. Why is he tied up?"

Joe shook his head. "I don't know. I found him this way." His voice was hoarse from the fumes. He pulled out his pocketknife. "We should be able to cut it." He looked down to Booker's face. Booker was blinking now. He looked up at Joe with an expression of confusion, then pleading. His silence wasn't some stubborn attempt to take the rules of exile to an extreme. But why Booker wasn't speaking was still a mystery.

The fireman had pulled out a utility tool from somewhere. "I can clip these," he said. "Roll him on his stomach. Is he alive?"

"Yes," Joe answered. "He is." He moved to Booker's feet, where half the bindings were braided fabric, charred where they'd caught on fire at some point. These his knife cut through easily. He got through three strands of what looked like telephone wire before giving up on that and going back to Booker's head. "Sebastien?" he asked with concern. He stroked the side of his head, Booker's singed hair breaking off as he touched it. "Speak to me."

Booker just looked at him, less pleading than before. Tired maybe. Concerned as well. He lifted his chin and his face took on a questioning look. There was something Joe needed to puzzle out here. On second look, he realized the thing he'd mistaken for a scarf was only torn pillowcase or something similar. He moved his hand across the fabric and felt something on Booker's throat.

"Ah," Joe said, realizing there was something there preventing his speech. He took his knife and cut away the cloth.

"What are you doing?" the firefighter asked in alarm. He was most of the way done on his wrist bindings, but now he paused. From his angle it likely looked like Joe was about to stab Book in the side of the neck.

"It's okay," Joe said soothingly. "I'm being careful."

"There's blood on him." The firefighter gestured at the brown stain across Booker's shoulders and matted into his hair. His throat had been cut and he'd bled out at least once. She'd murdered him – tied him up, tortured him, and killed him. Then left him to be incinerated – cooked in a burning building where she could have had no expectation that they'd arrive in time to rescue him. Joe had seen Andy after she'd been burned at the stake. Better than most, he knew what fate Quynh had tried to condemn Booker to.

"It's all old," Joe said, swallowing around the lump in his throat. He peeled the fabric back a little and hesitated. He wasn't sure what he'd see under it. If it was something incompatible with life, then he needed to make sure the firefighter wasn't watching. He told the firefighter, "Please release him."

He waited until the firefighter went back to clipping wires before lifting the cloth. Joe looked at what Quynh had done to Book's neck and the reason for the silence. There was a piece of plastic under his trachea and a coil of stripped wire holding it there. There was a clothespin inserted in the breathing tube, probably clamped over the vocal cords. Healing had sealed the flesh around these foreign bodies, but been unable to expel them. It was not a surprise to him that Quynh knew how to do this, but it was to see it practiced on someone unwilling.

Delicately, he released the clip and tugged out the wire and a bit of plastic. The flesh stuck to them at first, then ejected the materials. Joe gently covered the injury with his hand as it put itself back together properly, absent the foreign materials. With his other hand, he petted Booker's head again. Booker jerked when his wrists were finally released. He pulled them around to his front, still without a sound.

"Is he okay?" the firefighter asked.

Joe nodded and spoke curtly. "Yes. His feet, please." The man went to them. Joe's blood was boiling at Quynh. Of all the things – for her to finally return to them and then do something like this? As much as he was still upset about the thing with Merrick, this was wrong. Even if Quynh had known every detail of that and it had been her own love strapped to a table next to her – _this was wrong_.

Booker leaned forward so his forehead rested on Joe's forearm. It was an intentional action. Joe could not remember, ever, a moment when Booker had so clearly asked him for help or comfort or protection, like he was broken. When the last binding was cut, Joe immediately lifted, bringing Booker upright and sitting. Joe put his arms around him and held him. Book put his head against Joe's chest. He was breathing hard, possibly crying.

Joe bit his lip. He regretted (and yet didn't) voting for so long of an exile. Not that it would have mattered if they'd picked one year or one hundred – barely six months had passed. Any exile at all would have resulted in the same thing. But he was still angry that kicking Booker out had resulted in this – the smell of burned flesh and hair, the crusted texture of Booker's blood flaking from his shoulders, the way the man was trembling slightly under his hands – it was enough to make him wish Quynh was back in the sea.

The firefighter was looking at them uncertainly. Over Booker's shoulder, Joe said, "There were three bodies in the hallway on the third floor. They were dead, but there might be others. Two were police." The firefighter grimaced and hurried away to relay this news to the other emergency personnel. Joe stroked Booker's back, trying to soothe him, trying to soothe both of them because his anger felt too big. He saw where their car was parked further down than it had been before. It was at the mouth of an alley where he could see the front of an ambulance. There was no Andy in the car. Something wasn't right. Fear replaced his rage.

He saw Nile helping someone out of the building and Nicky coming over to her. They both looked over at him, their faces showing relief as they recognized Booker. Joe pointed urgently at the car. Nicky and Nile both looked that way and recognized the irregularity same as he had. They started running that way.

Booker pulled back a little and said, "Quynh is here. She's after Andy."

Joe nodded, fear twisting in his gut as he remembered Booker had only been the signal – a lure to get them here. "Stay with me." He got to his feet. Booker rose with him. They ran after the others.


End file.
